QandO defines a Neolibertarian as “Pragmatic domestic libertarian; Hawk on defense”. There’s much more, but in the updates this set of general policies is proposed:

When given a set of policy choices,

The choice that maximizes personal liberty is the best choice.

The policy choice that offers the least amount of necessary government intervention or regulation is the best choice.

The policy choice that provides rational, market-based incentives is the best choice.

In foreign policy, neolibertartianism would be characterized by,

A policy of diplomacy that promotes consensual government and human rights and opposes dictatorship.

A policy of using US military force solely at the discretion of the US, but only in circumstances where American interests are directly affected.

Although I “Blog for Bush” and strongly supported him in the last two elections (and would do so again) I did so because he was the candidate closest to my ideals. His foriegn policy is nothing short of brilliant which will reshape the world for decades.

As I have said several times in the past, however, I find his domestic policy to be nothing short of disastrous.

I left the Libertarian Party in 2004 when presidential candidate Michael Badnarik asked supporters to wear black on the anniversary of 9/11 “to mourn the deaths of the thousands of people who have died as a result of U.S. government policies”.

Libertarians are often idealistic and myopic, ignoring the real world in pursuit of their goals, unable to compromise their principles. A little pragmatism is called for in the real world.

8 Responses to “NeoLibs”

His foriegn policy is nothing short of brilliant which will reshape the world for decades.
His rhetoric and speeches may be brilliant, the reality leaves much to be desired …*cough* coddling Saudi Arabia and Pakistan *cough*.

I am the chairman of a county Libertarian committee in PA. I understand your frustration with Badnarik, and with some members of the party. I experience my own frustrations in my attempts to motivate people and work towards the defined political goal of getting candidates elected to offices where they can preserve and protect the freedoms of their constituency and reduce the size of government.
However, I do not see how you can advocate for Bush. To say that you support him purely on the basis of his foreign policy record is ludicrous. You’re also not being harsh enough on him when you say that his domestic policy is disastrous.
It goes beyond disaster into some realm rarely seen in American policy. I would rank Bush with the worst presidents domestically of all time: FDR, LBJ, etc. I don’t imagine that I have to detail a litany of complaints to you, as you’re probably cognizant of them all, but it saddens me to see that your anger at the events of 9/11 and the hesitant non-commital response by the Libertarian Party would drive you to the ideological arms of the Republican Party.
Libertarians are not supposed to yield on their philosophy. They have created a party called “The Party of Principle”. Where the Libertarian Party gets into trouble is where they do not speak up about things like 9/11 and boldly follow their philosophies to their logical conclusions.
If you have changed in your policy views so much that you feel he is closest to your political and economic philosophies, then you are no longer a libertarian, no matter how many prefixes you put on it.

Maurice,
It is very easy to have libertarian views and say about Bush that ‘he was the candidate closest to my ideals’. There were only two real-world choices in the last election and any honest libertarian would have to be closer to Bush than Kerry. That doesn’t mean agree 100% or even 25%. Unfortunately with your views that you are unwilling to ‘yield’ anything, your party is, and always will be, irrelevent. This is the real world, not a utopian dream. I say this as someone who does agree with many ideals the Libertarian Party stands for. But because of their unwillingness to change what is possible and yield to what is not yet possible, I will never support them.
In the real world the greatest libertarian ideals will mean nothing without a country to back them up.
And sorry for saying ‘real world’ so many times.

There is obviously a lot of disenchantment with the LP among many libertarians. If the LP can’t attract the votes and participation of libertarians (its natual constituency)then it has a serious problem. The comments by Maurice make it clear that the LP doesn’t take the disenchantment seriously, but instead tells itself that ‘their views have changed, they are no longer libertarians.’
The Libertarian Party does not define the boundaries of libertarianism. The LP needs to figure out why so many libertarians are turning away from it and then to adapt itself to entice them back.

Phil, it has no shot at doing that, because in order to be a successful third party in the US you have to motivate your troops. And the only way to do that in the LP is to remind them how tyrannical the US actually is and how much change will actually be required before the Great Libertarian Epiphany (TM) takes place.
Maurice, ever wonder what happens when two different people in the Party of Principles have *different* Principles? Two possibilities. ONE, the two people bring their different principles to their party, find some common ground, and create a bloc of political power with them. TWO, one of the people demands that the other is unacceptable and must be purged.
The LP has decided that the Principles are uniform and unwielding and so purges have left the membership reeling and the party a skeleton of its former self. Yeah good luck with that.
For the sake of the Liberty movement, the LP must die.

Right on. I first registered to vote in 1990 as a Libertarian. Over the years, it became clear to me that a good portion of my fellow Libertarians were less concerned with coming up with doable plans to restrict government growth and perhaps shrink it than they were with smoking pot and ranting about the Fascists (e.g., just like the nutjob party “chairman” above can’t resist bashing Bush for more than five minutes).
Then, after 9/11, the Libertarian party seemed to be taken over by folks who were absolutely indifferent to punishing and defanging an Islamic terrorist culture that had just murdered 3000 of their fellow Americans and inflicted billions in damage to our greatest cities. I’m sorry, I take that back, they weren’t “indifferent”, they were actively rooting for the other side and associating with known Islamic terrorists (e.g., antiwar.com). All because they hated Chimpy McBushitler so much they couldn’t remember that they were Americans. I’m no fan of Bush, but it was clear it was time to get out of that loony bin of a party for good.
The Libertarian Party turned its back on America before Badnarik asked his supporters to wear black armbands for the Taliban. I’m glad that event made it clear for you, and welcome back to reality.

Politically I lean more “Libertarian” than I do towards the Republican party, but I have always refused to have much to do with the official LP for a couple of strong reasons.
1)The LP has never been about the possible, but about Utopia. I have had several arguments with “Libertarians” who refuse to accept sensible and incremental solutions and want their perfect governmentless system today.
2)The LP doesn’t accept human nature. I had a rather involved argument with some members of the LP where they honestly believed that you could stop crime without a police force merely by counting on the good nature of the average person. The fact that they themselves wouldn’t risk their life for others doesn’t seem to mean to them that perhaps others wouldn’t either.
3)The LP is extremely isolationalist, and refuses to accept military realities. They don’t want to aggresively defend the US, and I’ve even run into members that want no military, but would count on the average citizen to form a militia to stop an invasion. (I can’t picture stopping an invading army of tanks without special weapons, but then again I’ve read about how Poland tried to stop the Blitzkrieg with cavalry, it seems many Libertarians don’t read much history)
So perhaps I don’t qualify as a perfect “libertarian” I still will support a smaller, more liberty oriented government as long as we continue to have a dependable military that is used to promote freedom around the world.

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